INVESTIGATING THE IMPACT OF DISEASE ON ABORIGINAL AUSTRALIA WITH STOCHASTIC MULTI-PATCH EPIDEMIC MODELS

Activity: Talk or presentation typesInvited talk

Description

Smallpox was unknown to the indigenous populations of the isolated continent of Australia. This was one of the most damaging of new infectious diseases to break out among Aboriginal Australians when their isolation came to an end. However, very little is known about the precolonial population of Australia and the impact of novel diseases. This has fueled speculation about the origin of these outbreaks that began soon after the arrival of the first permanent European settlers. By the time these settlers arrived in 1788, the indigenous inhabitants of Australia had developed a very complex culture with over 390 distinct language groups spread across a diverse landscape. To account for this heterogeneity, we divide the continent into patches according to the geographical range of these groups, each of which have a different risk of infection determined by connectivity of the group and natural geographical boundaries. Incorporating these differences, we present a stochastic multipatch epidemic model to simulate how smallpox may have spread through the continent and investigate the effect it had on the
resident population.
Period23 Jul 2024
Event title13th European Conference on Mathematical and Theoretical Biology: ECMTB'24
Event typeConference
Conference number13
LocationToledo, SpainShow on map
Degree of RecognitionInternational

Keywords

  • IMPACT OF DISEASE
  • Aboriginal health
  • Infectious diseases